Monday, September 24, 2007

The dialectic of creativity and reality-testing has taken us far beyond other animals and can take us farther. The next step is to dump our most natural and mistaken metaphor — education as the filling of empty minds — and recognize that we learn by extrapolating, testing, modifying and recombining mental models of the world.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Author James Oliver Rigney, Jr. died yesterday after a year and a half battle with cardiac amyloidosis. Rigney, a.k.a Robert Jordan, wrote the Wheel of Time series as well as many other books.

I used to joke with Kristen and my dad that my only goal in life was to become more famous than my published doppleganger. I never read his books, but I did play a Wheel of Time role playing game a few years back.

Hearing about his death made me feel strange. It must be the combo of him being my life's benchmark and the similar name.

Perhaps I am getting old. It's very sobering, thinking about this man, his life, his battle with a terminal disease and the family he leaves behind.